Hemlösa ungdomar - ett osynligt problem : En kvalitativ studie om avsaknaden av en enhetlig problembeskrivning

Sammanfattning: Homeless adolescents are in Sweden rather invisible, as a group. There is no established definition or description of the problem, nor any uniform terms regarding it. The purpose of this study is to investigate how four different organizations, based on their basic principles, describe the group homeless adolescents. We discuss why the organizations reason as they do, and what it leads to. In order to do so we have performed qualitative interviews with representatives from each organization. The study relies on a social constructivist theory, which focuses on how knowledge and different phenomena are constructed. To analyze the constructions concerning the group homeless adolescents we used Kitsuse & Spector’s (1973a; 1973b; 1977) social constructivist theory about social problems. To operationalize our theory and determine how the phenomena is constructed we used Rose’s (1999) dimensions of analysis. Our results show that governmental organizations don’t recognize this as a problem of homelessness, but as a family problem. Only one organization offers a different description. This indicates that there is a public description of the problem, and one claims-making process. According to the public description the solution to the problem is family treatment which means that the basic condition is that the adolescents return home, otherwise the group can’t be helped.